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Review

Global Evolution of Research on Sustainable Finance from 2000 to 2021: A Bibliometric Analysis on WoS Database

by
Wenbing Luo
1,2,
Ziyan Tian
1,
Shihu Zhong
3,
Qinke Lyu
4 and
Mingjun Deng
5,*
1
School of Business, Hunan University of Science and Technology, Xiangtan 411201, China
2
School of Accounting, Hunan University of Technology and Business, Changsha 410205, China
3
Shanghai National Accounting Institute, Shanghai 201799, China
4
Amsterdam Business School, University of Amsterdam, 1000 GG Amsterdam, The Netherlands
5
Big Data and Intelligent Decision Research Center, Hunan University of Science and Technology, Xiangtan 411201, China
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Sustainability 2022, 14(15), 9435; https://doi.org/10.3390/su14159435
Submission received: 4 May 2022 / Revised: 19 July 2022 / Accepted: 29 July 2022 / Published: 1 August 2022
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainable Finance: New Trends, Environment and Social Changes)
Browse Figures
Versions Notes

Abstract

:
The expanding international influence of sustainable finance has made it one of the most cutting-edge development trends in the financial field. Learning about the global evolution of research on sustainable finance can improve the understanding and evaluation of sustainable finance by scholars and practitioners. Based on the ISI Web of Science database, this paper used bibliometric methods to analyze 3786 articles related to sustainable finance published between 2000 and 2021, mastering their discipline co-occurrence, publication characteristics, partnership, influence, keyword co-occurrence, co-citations, and structural variation. The highlights of the results: socially responsible investment, climate change, corporate social responsibility, green finance, carbon credits, and renewable energy were the hotspots between 2000 and 2021; responsible investment, green bond, low-carbon transition, vulnerable countries, low-carbon investment, business model, financial development, supply chain, conventional investment dilemma, sustainable financing, environmental investment, and green credit policy were the hot research topics between 2016 and 2021; papers related to socially responsible investment were an important knowledge base for sustainable financial research between 2000 and 2021; the research topics of the articles with the strongest transformative potentials between 2016 and 2021 mainly involved green bonds, socially responsible mutual funds, ESG investors’ preferences, and the impact of COVID-19.

1. Introduction

In recent years, the international influence of sustainable finance has continued to expand. International organizations such as the United Nations, the European Union, the United States, the United Kingdom, and many other developed countries have successively issued policies and measures to promote sustainable financial development. In 2015, world leaders reached a consensus on reducing the negative impact of climate change, which is the “Paris Agreement on Climate Change”, and 193 UN member states adopted the “2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development”, aiming to explore the path of sustainable development of the world economy. In March 2018, the European Commission published its Action Plan on Financing Sustainable Growth, and formulated the EU sustainable financial strategy as well as the road map on the future work of the whole financial system [1]. According to the requirements of the plan, the European Banking Authority (EBA) initially launched the plan of integrating Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) into the regulatory framework of EU credit institutions. In June 2018, the European Commission established an expert group of sustainable financial technology experts to provide assistance in the development of an EU classification system (which can determine the environmental sustainability of economic activities), EU green bond standards, EU climate benchmark and information disclosure specifications, enterprise climate-related information disclosure guidelines, etc. In December 2018, the EBA joined the green financial system network composed of central banks and regulators to accelerate the realization of the global environmental protection objectives of the Paris Agreement by enhancing the green development efficiency of financial service institutions. On 6 December 2019, the EBA issued the “Action Plan: Financing Sustainable Development”, which formally incorporated ESG risk factors into the financial sustainability assessment system and became an important guiding document for further sustainable development in Europe. In order to help banks to implement an environmentally sustainable loan framework in line with regulatory expectations, on 20 May 2020, the European Central Bank (ECB) published a guide on climate-related and environmental risks, a set of supervisory expectations relating to business models and strategy, governance and risk appetite, risk management, and disclosures. On 13 October 2021, the G20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors’ meeting pointed out that “sustainable finance is crucial to green transformation” and approved the “G20 Sustainable Finance Roadmap” and “G20 Comprehensive Report on Sustainable Finance” jointly drafted by the People’s Bank of China and the US Treasury Department. In order to meet the challenges, companies, investors, financial institutions, governments, and other participants promoted sustainable finance and investment plans [2]. To sum up, sustainable finance has become the most cutting-edge development trend in the financial field. Therefore, it will have major theoretical and practical significance to comprehensively grasp the global evolution of research on sustainable finance.
In recent years, academia had paid more and more attention to the research of sustainable finance and published many related papers [2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11], which makes it difficult for us to grasp the focus of research from thousands of papers, resulting in a major risk of ignoring basic problems and research improvement fields. Who are the famous scholars involved in sustainable finance research? Which institutions and countries had close cooperation? How did the research themes and development trends evolve? All of these problems above need to be deeply analyzed. In order to solve these problems, it is necessary to use scientometric software [12]. Bibliometrics can provide us with a new perspective of understanding the current status and development trends of knowledge in a specific field [13,14,15]. Many visualization tools supporting literature co-citation analysis and keyword co-occurrence analysis have emerged in recent years, such as Bibexcel (version 16.2), VOSviewer (version 1.6.17), Sci2 (version 1.3), CiteSpace (version 5.8.R3), and Online Analysis Platform for Bibliometrics (version 1.0), which can support us to carry out visual analysis in related fields [16]. Although some scholars have used bibliometric methods to review the relevant research on sustainable finance, their research has the problem of complete literature retrieval [6,7,8]. Therefore, this paper intends to comprehensively search through the literature related to sustainable finance, and visualize the knowledge structures and developments within sustainable finance research using the bibliometric analysis method, in order to guide scholars and practitioners to determine the research interests and emerging themes of sustainable finance, so as to enhance their understanding and evaluation of the field. Compared with other bibliometric analysis in sustainable finance research [6,7,8], the contributions of this paper are as follows: (1) the bibliometric retrieval strategy in this paper was more systematic and comprehensive, the search keywords were not limited to sustainable finance and green finance, and the total amount of literature obtained in this paper was more than four times that of other similar papers, which can better reflect the global evolution of research on sustainable finance; (2) a longer selected time period for knowledge mapping is not better. Therefore, this paper carried out knowledge mapping of the sustainable financial research in two phases, which could enable readers to see more clearly the hotspots and theme evolution of research on sustainable finance in the initial stage (2000–2015) and the rapid development stage (2016–2021); (3) this paper used CiteSpace’s Structural Variation Analysis (SVA) function to measure the transformative potentials of recent sustainable finance papers, avoiding the neglect of newly published papers by citation-based indicators, and enabling readers to better find new literature with transformation potential.
This paper is organized as follows. After this introduction, Section 2 provides the primary research materials and methods. Section 3 presents the research findings and analyses. Section 4 presents research-related conclusions.

2. Materials and Methods

2.1. Data Acquisition

According to the requirements of CiteSpace, this study collected data from the Web of Science Core Collection. The bibliometric search strategy: TS = (“sustainable financ*” OR “environmental financ*” OR “carbon financ*” OR “climate financ*” OR “green financ*” OR “sustainable investing” OR “environmental investing” OR “carbon investing” OR “climate investing” OR “green investing” OR “sustainable investment” OR “environmental investment” OR “carbon investment” OR “climate investment” OR “green investment” OR “environmental fund*” OR “carbon fund*” OR “climate fund*” OR “green fund*” OR “green credit*” OR “carbon credit*” OR “green bond*” OR “carbon bond*” OR “socially responsible investing” OR “socially responsible investment”) AND WC = (Environmental Sciences or Environmental Studies or Green Sustainable Science Technology or Economics or Energy Fuels or Business Finance or Business or Management or Ecology or Public Administration or Development Studies or Operations Research Management Science or Water Resources or Public Environmental Occupational Health or Political Science or Area Studies or Agricultural Economics Policy or Urban Studies or Regional Urban Planning), timespan = 2000-01-01 to 2021-12-31, document types = (article), indexes = (SCI-EXPANDED, SSCI and ESCI). A total of 3786 publications were selected on 7 January 2022.

2.2. Bibliometric Analysis

Bibliometrics mainly quantitatively analyses academic literature using mathematics, statistics, and bibliographies [17], which helps researchers exchange research achievements and academic ideas [18]. Many publications have used bibliometric analysis to evaluate the development trends of relevant research [19]. The common methods of bibliometrics include statistical analysis, citation analysis, sharing analysis, and so on. In addition, knowledge mapping can reveal the relationship between the development process and structure of scientific knowledge, focus on the evolution process of a certain knowledge field, and help scholars understand the hot spots, frontiers, and trends of research in this field [20].
Scholars can quickly grasp the basic information and development status of literature using the statistical analysis of journals, authors, countries, and institutions of relevant literature in a certain field [21]. We used Online Analysis Platform for Bibliometrics (version 1.0) or Excel software to conduct the visualization analysis of publication year, journals, and countries.
Partnership analysis mainly analyzes the relationship between countries (institutions or authors). We used VOSviewer (version 1.6.17) to analyze the cooperation network among countries, institutions, and authors.
Focusing on the evolution of research topics helps researchers understand the development of specific fields, while keyword co-occurrence analysis can find hot topics and developing research frontiers in specific research fields [22]. In this paper, we used VOSviewer to make a keyword co-occurrence network map (author’s keywords), and monitored hot topics and development trends in sustainable finance research through keyword co-occurrence network analysis.
Co-citation analysis can detect the interrelationship between papers, and find important changes in ideas and paradigms in the research field by drawing a knowledge structure diagram of the research field [23,24]. The application of bibliometric mapping technology can help scholars quickly visualize and understand the intellectual structure of different types of research objects [25]. Among the existing visualization tools, CiteSpace can quickly and systematically help scholars understand a certain field by marking co-citation clusters and using time slice snapshots to form timeliness and key points [12]. In this study, we used CiteSpace (version 5.8.R3) to find major research areas in the knowledge domain, and journal overlay maps. In order to better understand the development of sustainable finance research in different periods, we carried out co-citation analysis in two periods: (1) set a time span from 2000 to 2015, set “years per slice = 1”, “node types = reference”, “Selection Criteria: Select top = 100”, and “Pruning = Pathfinder, and Pruning sliced networks” in CiteSpace to analyze their intellectual structure and the dynamics of co-citation clusters, respectively; (2) set a time span from 2016 to 2021, set “years per slice = 1”, “node types = reference”, “Selection Criteria: g-index, k = 100”, and “Pruning = Pathfinder, and Pruning sliced networks” in CiteSpace to analyze their intellectual structure and the dynamics of co-citation clusters, respectively. The reasons for making knowledge maps in two periods are as follows: the signing of the Paris Agreement and the promotion of the G20 Leaders’ Communique Hangzhou Summit made remarkable progress in green finance in 2016, and the number of papers increased significantly from 2016, as shown in Figure 1.

3. Results and Analysis

3.1. Discipline Co-Occurrence Analysis

Via the “dual-map overlay” function of CiteSpace, we add the layer containing the 3786 bibliographic records on sustainable finance, which turns into colorful links between the source and the reference area [26]: the discipline co-occurrence network, as shown in Figure 2. Over 10,000 journals are classified into different disciplines with different colors and located in different spots of both the source (or left) area and the reference (or right) area. For example, the discipline “Economics, Economic, Political” is in lake-blue, and it ranks the 10th in the source area and the 12th in the reference area [26]. As for the distribution of the reference journals, “3. Ecology, Earth, Marine” links to “10. Plant, Ecology, Zoology” and “12. Economics, Economic, Political”; “7. Veterinary, Animal, Science” links to “2. Environmental, Toxicology, Nutrition” and “12. Economics, Economic, Political”; and “10. Economics, Economic, Political” links to “7. Psychology, Education, Social” and “12. Economics, Economic, Political”.

3.2. Publication Characteristics Analysis

As shown in Figure 3, the number of published papers in China exploded from 2016 to 2021. From 2000 to 2021, the USA issued a total of 752 articles, accounting for 19.86% of 3786; China issued a total of 712 articles, accounting for 18.81% of 3786; the UK issued a total of 390 articles, accounting for 10.30% of 3786; and Australia issued a total of 276 articles, accounting for 7.29% of 3786.
As shown in Table 1: (1) the top 10 WOS of categories in the total number of papers published; (2) the top 10 publication titles in terms of publication volume; (3) the top 10 authors in the number of papers published.

3.3. Partnership Analysis

The cooperative relationship between countries is shown in Figure 4. Among them, authors from China, the USA, the UK, France, Australia, and Canada have more cooperation with authors from other countries.
The cooperation between institutions is shown in Figure 5. The core of the institutional cooperation network includes the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the University of Queensland, and the University of Oxford.
The cooperation between authors is shown in Figure 6. In the main author cooperation network, the authors who play a key role include Taghizadeh-Hesary, Naeem, Yoshino, Mohsin, Zhang, and Sadiq.

3.4. Influence Analysis

Compared with other bibliometric analyses of sustainable finance research [6,7,8], this paper lists the top 10 institutions with influence, top 10 publication titles with influence, and top 10 authors with influence. This makes it easier for readers to understand the most influential institutions, journals, and authors in the field of sustainable finance research.
The top 10 institutions with influence are shown in Table 2. Maastricht University, Tilburg University, and the University of Cologne ranked the top three in the total number of references.
The top 10 publication titles with influence are shown in Table 3. The Journal of Business Ethics, Journal of Cleaner Production, and Journal of Banking and Finance ranked the top three in the total number of references.
The top 10 authors with influence are shown in Table 4. Derwall, Scholtens, and Koedijk ranked the top three in the total number of references.

3.5. Keyword Co-Occurrence Analysis

The knowledge map of keyword co-occurrences can suggest hot topics [12]. The keyword co-occurrence network is shown in Figure 7. Hot keywords include “socially responsible investment”, “climate change”, “corporate social responsibility”, “green finance”, “carbon credits”, and “renewable energy”.

3.6. Co-Citation Analysis

The co-citation map of references estimated the scientific relevance of publications [27]. A timeline visualization in CiteSpace depicts clusters along with horizontal timelines. The clusters are arranged vertically in descending order of size. Below each timeline, the three most cited references in a particular year are displayed [15].

3.6.1. Timeline View (2000–2015)

Based on the literature records from 2000 to 2015, we generated a cited reference map resulting in 2186 nodes and 6315 links with a Mean Silhouette, S = 0.9442 and Modularity Q = 0.9468 (Figure 8). The Modularity Q score was greater than 0.7, which means the network was reasonably divided into loosely coupled clusters.
The four salient clusters were sorted by size (Table 5). Representative publications are the documents with high co-citation frequency in each cluster.
Cluster #0: responsible fund. In the representative publications, Sievänen et al. (2013) investigated the key factors that determine the responsible investment of more than 250 pension funds in 15 European countries [28]; Marti-Ballester (2015) analyzed the impact of the implementation of ESG principles (including cleaner production methods) on the financial performance of Spanish pension plans [29]; Chegut et al. (2011) provided the best practices for socially responsible investment (SRI) performance attribution analysis by reviewing the performance literature of SRI mutual funds [30]; Marti-Ballester (2015) analyzed investor responses to the ethical screening of pension plan managers [31]; and Rathner (2013) applied the meta-analysis method to investigate how the selected main research characteristics affect the possibility of differences in the outperformance of SRI funds compared with conventional funds [32].
Cluster #1: carbon finance. In the representative publications, Purdon (2015) identified the conditions under which CDM and other carbon finance projects could effectively generate real “additional” carbon credit through empirical research [33]; Li and Colombier (2011) assessed the applicability of carbon finance instruments in improving building energy efficiency [34]; and Lewis (2010) assessed how to use international carbon finance to promote emission reduction in developing countries [35].
Cluster #2: contributor states. In the representative publications, Pickering et al. (2015) studied the important knowledge gap in how donor countries determine climate finance [36]; Pickering et al. (2015) studied how different levels of international coordination may affect the fairness of global climate finance efforts [37]; and Cui and Gui (2015) studied the sharing of the financing burden of the green climate fund in developed countries in the post-Kyoto era [38].
Cluster #3: emission reductions. In the representative publications, Rindefjäll et al. (2011) argued that Chile mainly used the clean development mechanism as a tool to attract foreign investment and regarded carbon credit as another export product [39]; and Freeman and Zerriffi (2014) compared the carbon credits of different types of stoves under different fuels, methods, and theoretical scenarios [40].
Table 6 lists the detailed information of the top 15 references with strongest citation bursts from 2000 to 2015 (there are 41 references with the strongest citation bursts between 2000 and 2015, and we chose 15 representative references). The Sigma metric measures both the citation burstiness and structural centrality of a cited reference. Through further analysis, we found that most of the 15 references were published in top journals, and their research topics mainly focused on socially responsible investment and socially responsible investment funds. Compared with other bibliometric analyses of sustainable finance research [6,7,8], this paper provided the references with strongest citation bursts to make it easier for readers to learn the important knowledge base of the evolution of research on sustainable finance from 2000 to 2015.

3.6.2. Timeline View (2016–2021)

Based on the literature records from 2016 to 2021, we generated a cited reference map, which resulted in 1596 nodes and 3478 links with a mean Silhouette, S = 0.9255 and modularity Q = 0.8344 (Figure 9). The modularity Q score was greater than 0.7, which means the network was reasonably divided into loosely coupled clusters.
The twelve salient clusters were sorted by size (Table 7). The representative publications are the documents with high co-citation frequency in each cluster.
Cluster #0: responsible investment. In the representative publications, D’Apice et al. (2021) studied the impact of the degree of sustainable development disclosure of the holding company on the SRI funds it manages when the ESG rating is reliable [41]; Sciarelli et al. (2021) explored whether the ESG standard in the investment strategy could support the transformation of finance to more sustainable growth [42]; Pedersen et al. (2021) investigated whether corporate ESG scores affected investor preferences [43]; and Brzeszczynski et al. (2021) assessed the risk of SRI stocks in the Central and Eastern European (CEE) market [44].
Cluster #1: green bond. In the representative publications, Reboredo and Ugolini (2020) studied the price correlation between green bonds and financial markets [45]; Tolliver et al. (2020) used structural equation modeling to measure the drivers of green bond issuance in 49 countries [46]; Liu et al. (2021) explored the dependence and systemic risks between green bonds and the clean energy market [47]; and Leitao et al. (2021) evaluated the nonlinear impact of conventional bonds, green bonds, and energy commodities on the behavior of the EU carbon emission trading market [48].
Cluster #2: low-carbon transition. In the representative publications, Mercure et al. (2019) explored the macroeconomic theory practical application of modeling innovation and low-carbon transformation. The authors strongly recommended that energy economy system modelers could improve their representations of money and finance [49]; Monasterolo and Raberto (2019) explored the impact of phasing out fossil fuel subsidies on low-carbon transformation [50]; Mohsin et al. (2021) developed a low-carbon financial index that may help attract foreign direct and private investment in low-carbon energy [51]; and Chien et al. (2021) analyzed the relationship between energy, finance, environmental sustainability, and regional social performance [52].
Cluster #3: vulnerable countries. In the representative publications, Klöck et al. (2018) tested the two burden-sharing mechanisms by analyzing bilateral climate assistance to determine which mechanism best explains the current model of climate financing commitments [53]; Weiler et al. (2018) analyzed bilateral adaptation assistance data to assess the extent to which adaptation assistance was tailored to the needs of recipient countries [54]; Doshi and Garschagen (2020) explored the key enablers and constraints in the allocation and access of global bilateral adaptation assistance [55]; and Betzold and Weiler (2017) examined how and to what extent the commitments of particularly vulnerable countries translate into practical adaptation assistance [56].
Cluster #4: low-carbon investment. In the representative publications, Nemet et al. (2017) used the experience of other policy areas to propose a set of possible remedial measures to solve the credibility of low-carbon investment [57]; Sudmant et al. (2017) compared the macro analysis of climate financing with the bottom-up assessment of the scale of low-carbon investment opportunities in cities of four developing countries [58]; and Bernardo and D’Alessandro (2016) assessed the social and economic consequences of the shift of investment to low-carbon options using a macroeconomic framework [59].
Cluster #5: business model. In the representative publications, Munoz-Torres et al. (2019) attempted to show whether the evaluation methods adopted by the eight ESG institutions are consistent with the comprehensive ESG sustainable value framework based on the literature and the conceptualization of sustainable business models [60].
Cluster #6: financial development. In the representative publications, Shen et al. (2021) studied the role of natural resource rent, green investment, financial development, and energy consumption in achieving sustainable development goals through carbon emission reductions in China [61]; Sheraz et al. (2021) explored the moderating effects of globalization on the relationship between a series of variables (financial development, energy consumption, human capital, GDP) and carbon dioxide emissions [62]; and Zafar et al. (2021) examined the impact of globalization, financial development, and energy use on carbon dioxide emissions in Asian countries [63].
Cluster #7: supply chain. In the representative publications, An et al. (2021) made an in-depth comparison between green credit financing and trade credit financing under the limitation of carbon emissions in the supply chain [64]; Shi et al. (2018) examined the sustainable investment in three supply chain power structures (manufacturer Stackelberg, vertical Nash, and retailer Stackelberg power structure) [65]; Cheng et al. (2018) studied the sustainable investment of the supply chain under the influence of big data technology by using a Bayesian information updating approach [66]; and Zou et al. (2020) analyzed the benefits of retailers’ low-carbon investment on the supply chain using the Stackelberg game method [67].
Cluster #8: conventional investment dilemma. In the representative publications, Sharma et al. (2021) studied the coherence problem between sustainable indexes and conventional indexes before and during the COVID-19 period [68]; Zhang et al. (2021) studied the impact of China’s green credit policy on the investment and financing behavior of high-energy consumption and high-pollution enterprises, as well as the impact on regional environmental quality [69]; and D’Orazio (2021) reviewed several financial measures taken by G20 countries after the COVID-19 pandemic to avoid increasing the high-carbon bias of existing policies and explicitly address climate related risks in the financial sector [70].
Cluster #9: sustainable financing. In the representative publications, Ari and Koc (2021) evaluated whether a philanthropic–crowdfunding–partnership (PCP) could reduce wealth inequality by simulating the conventional and PCP financing model of Turkish solar farms [71]; Mejia-Escobar et al. (2020) comprehensively understood the current situation and research trend of sustainable financial products (SFP) by analyzing the existing literature and describing the existing SFP in the Latin American banking industry [72]; and Setyowati (2020) explored how Indonesia’s sustainable finance roadmap was implemented on the ground and the challenges faced in its effective implementation [73].
Cluster #10: environmental investment. In the representative publications, Tian et al. (2020) studied the impact of innovation in Chinese listed companies on environmental investment, as well as the moderating effect of environmental policy and internationalization level [74]; and Chariri et al. (2019) studied the impact of audit committee, institutional ownership, and industry type on the environmental investment of listed companies in the Indonesian stock exchange, as well as the impact of environmental investment on corporate financial performance [75].
Cluster #14: green credit policy. In the representative publications, Zhang et al. (2021) studied the impact of China’s green credit policy on the investment and financing behavior and pollution emission of listed companies [76]; Zhang et al. (2021) studied the effect difference of China’s green credit policy between small and medium-sized environment-friendly manufacturing enterprises and large environment-friendly manufacturing enterprises [77]; Hu et al. (2021) studied the impact of China’s green credit policy on the green innovation of listed companies in heavy pollution industries [78]; and Zhang et al. (2021) studied the impact mechanism of green credit on China’s environmental quality at the provincial level [79].
Table 8 lists the detailed information of the top 18 references with strongest citation bursts in 2016–2021 (there are 104 references with the strongest citation bursts between 2016 and 2021, and we chose 18 representative references). The Sigma metric measures both the citation burstiness and structural centrality of a cited reference. Through further analysis, we found that most of the 18 references were published in top journals, and their research topics mainly focused on socially responsible investment, sustainability stock index, and socially responsible funds. These references were the important knowledge base of the evolution of research on sustainable finance from 2016 to 2021.

3.7. Structural Variation Analysis

Citation-based indicators may ignore newly published articles, while SVA focuses on the impact of newly published articles. It looks for newly added connections that may alter the global structure or have the potential to do so [80,81]. The idea is to identify the potential of an article to make extraordinary or unexpected connections across distinct clusters [15]. However, SVA had not been conducted in the previous bibliometric analyses of sustainable finance research [6,7,8]. To measure the transformative potential of recent papers, we used the SVA of CiteSpace (1-year span sliding windows). Table 9 shows a list of articles with high transformative potential based on the ΔModularity and ΔCluster Linkage.
SVA can better quantify the novelty of newly published papers. In the future, these novel papers are likely to become highly cited papers. By analyzing the new papers with potential for change from 2016 to 2021 in Table 6, we found that the research topics of these new papers mainly involved green bonds, socially responsible mutual funds, ESG investors’ preferences, and the impact of COVID-19.

4. Conclusions and Discussion

4.1. Conclusions

Based on the WOS database, there were a total of 3786 records related to sustainable finance research in some specific fields between 1st January 2000 and 31st December 2021. This study utilized a bibliometric approach to analyze the discipline co-occurrence, publication characteristics, partnership, keyword co-occurrence, co-citation, research themes and the transformative potentials of recent papers within the sustainable finance research. We advanced the following main conclusions:
(1)
The hotspots include socially responsible investment, climate change, corporate social responsibility, green finance, carbon credits, and renewable energy.
(2)
Responsible investment, green bonds, low-carbon transition, vulnerable countries, low-carbon investment, business model, financial development, supply chain, conventional investment dilemma, sustainable financing, environmental investment, and green credit policy were the hot research topics between 2016 and 2021.
(3)
Papers related to socially responsible investment were an important knowledge base for sustainable financial research between 2000 and 2021.
(4)
The research topics of the articles with the strongest transformative potential between 2016 and 2021 mainly involved green bonds, green finance, socially responsible mutual funds, ESG investors’ preferences, and the impact of COVID-19.
(5)
With regard to the impact of COVID-19 on sustainable finance, existing studies found that the green bond market was more efficient than the traditional bond market during the COVID-19 global pandemic, and that portfolio and fund managers prefer to invest in sustainable markets.

4.2. Discussion

Future development:
(1)
Vigorously develop the green bonds market. Green bonds are an important tool for the financial support of green development, which can sufficiently meet the huge green and low-carbon investment and financing needs brought about by the transformation of the real economy. The future research on green bonds needs to deeply explore the relationship between green bonds and other markets (financial market, carbon market, clean energy market, green stock market), and measure the relationship between the green bond market and macroeconomic stability in different countries through both the time and frequency dimensions. For how to measure this, scholars can refer to the relevant research of Boukhatem et al. (2021) [98].
(2)
Vigorously promote the concept of ESG green finance. The future research on ESG investment funds needs to deeply explore the relationship between SRI funds and ESG rating, focusing on ESG risk, ESG information disclosure, ESG evaluation and rating, ESG fund evaluation criteria, and ESG investors’ preferences. At the same time, just like the question of whether the international harmonization of corporate social responsibility information is effective, the future ESG information disclosure needs to solve the problem of the effectiveness of international harmonization [99].
(3)
Promote the development of green finance at the company level. Green finance mainly introduces social capital into green environmental protection projects by means of loans, bonds, investments, stock issuance, and other financial means. These green environmental protection projects are becoming more frequently initiated and implemented by specific companies. Although green innovation can improve resource efficiency, corporate reputation, and financial performance [100,101], corporate sustainability and environmental decisions are influenced by corporate governance [102]. Therefore, scholars need to further explore the mechanism by which corporate governance affects the development of green finance, and explore the role and approaches of financial companies funded by the group to promote the development of green finance.
(4)
Base a “green recovery” plan on green finance. Since the COVID-19 pandemic, countries around the world not only have to face the economic recession caused by the epidemic, but also urgently need to transform to low-carbon development. Governments responded to the economic or social impact of COVID-19 in the form of stimulus payments and relief packages, but many studies had found that these COVID-19 economic stimulus programs were rarely conducive to the environment. According to the “Greenness of Stimulus Index”, a study completed by the thinktanks Vivid Economics and Finance for Biodiversity, in the COVID-19 stimulus plan of the world’s 30 largest economies, only 12% were directed to eliminating greenhouse gas emissions or improving nature and biodiversity, with nearly 33% directed towards carbon-intensive industries. As early as July 2020, Europe and the EU showed their commitment to the green recovery post-COVID-19 by setting aside 25% of its EUR 750 billion recovery package for building energy-efficient infrastructure, and investing in renewables and other clean technology. However, the Russian–Ukrainian war has accelerated inflation and made the global economic outlook more gloomy, which will seriously hinder the green recovery of all countries in the world, especially the green recovery of the European Union.
Managerial implications:
As the green bond market develops, it is attracting more and more attention, and investors buying these instruments are becoming more mainstream. While subsets of investors are green-authorized and engaged in ESG-related investment activities, there has also been an increase in the number of “ordinary investors”. A growing number of large pension funds and asset managers are looking for sustainable and low-carbon-related investments, and these green bonds are often just what they need. ESG investment continues to mature around the world and will gradually become the core of sustainable finance. Managers can use ESG research results as an important theoretical reference for formulating or optimizing national green bond market development strategies and policies. Managers need to fully grasp the relationship between domestic green bonds and other markets, so as to better manage and develop domestic green bonds. Managers need to accelerate the development of ESG investment from the perspectives of regulatory policy, capital guidance, and investor cognition, formulate ESG policies, regulations, and information disclosure frameworks that are in line with national conditions, and cultivate ESG evaluation standards and rating systems that are international and in line with national conditions.
Limitations of this study:
The data only included English papers in the WoS Core Collection, resulting in the exclusion of a large number of English documents in Scopus, PubMed/Medline, and other databases, as well as a large number of documents in other languages [103]. It is necessary to conduct bibliometric analysis of the sustainable finance research literature in other databases and other languages.

Author Contributions

W.L.: conceptualization, approved the final manuscript, funding acquisition; Z.T.: data curation, formal analysis; S.Z.: project administration, revised the manuscript; Q.L.: revised the manuscript; M.D.: writing—original draft. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

Funding

This study is supported by the National Social Science Foundation of China (20BGL201).

Institutional Review Board Statement

Not applicable.

Informed Consent Statement

Not applicable.

Data Availability Statement

Not applicable.

Acknowledgments

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper. All remaining errors are our own.

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

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Figure 1. Publishing trend of papers in previous years.
Figure 1. Publishing trend of papers in previous years.
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Figure 2. A dual-map overlay of literature on sustainable finance (2000–2021).
Figure 2. A dual-map overlay of literature on sustainable finance (2000–2021).
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Figure 3. Publications distribution per country over the years.
Figure 3. Publications distribution per country over the years.
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Figure 4. Cooperation between countries.
Figure 4. Cooperation between countries.
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Figure 5. Cooperation between institutions.
Figure 5. Cooperation between institutions.
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Figure 6. Collaboration between authors.
Figure 6. Collaboration between authors.
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Figure 7. Number of keywords has changed over the years.
Figure 7. Number of keywords has changed over the years.
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Figure 8. A timeline visualization of clusters on the sustainable finance research from 2000 to 2015.
Figure 8. A timeline visualization of clusters on the sustainable finance research from 2000 to 2015.
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Figure 9. A timeline visualization of clusters on the sustainable finance research from 2016 to 2021.
Figure 9. A timeline visualization of clusters on the sustainable finance research from 2016 to 2021.
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Table
Table 1. Top 10 WOS of categories, publication titles, and authors.
Table 1. Top 10 WOS of categories, publication titles, and authors.
WOS CategoriesRecord CountPublication TitlesRecord CountAuthorsRecord Count
Environmental Sciences1320Sustainability289Tiwari, GN25
Environmental Studies996Journal of Cleaner Production151Kumar, A17
Green Sustainable Science Technology753Journal of Business Ethics110Scholtens, B16
Economics641Climate Policy98Taghizadeh-Hesary, F14
Energy Fuels497Energy Policy76Wang, Y13
Business Finance428Environmental Science and Pollution Research72Zhang, Y11
Business339Journal of Sustainable Finance Investment62Wang, C10
Environmental Engineering267Ecological Economics46Wang, L10
Management252Green Chemistry46Zhang, J10
Ecology165Atmospheric Environment43Arenas-Parra, M9
Table
Table 2. Top 10 institutions with influence.
Table 2. Top 10 institutions with influence.
Institution NameTotal Number of ArticlesTotal ReferencesAverage Cited TimesTotal Number of First AuthorsNumber of Citations of the First AuthorAverage Citation of the First Author
Maastricht Univ2045522.75812515.63
Tilburg Univ1543128.73516533
Univ Cologne525450.80212663
Univ Queensland422375.64251927.68
Univ Groningen2222410.181618411.5
Erasmus Univ1219115.92612821.33
Univ Warwick515130.20314949.67
Univ British Columbia331504.55151006.67
Univ Jaume I201487.4077510.71
Kyushu Univ151459.6744511.25
Table
Table 3. Top 10 publication titles with influence.
Table 3. Top 10 publication titles with influence.
Publication Titles Total Number of ArticlesTotal ReferencesAverage Cited Times
Journal of Business Ethics106130512.31
Journal of Cleaner Production1514442.94
Journal of Banking and Finance1433824.14
Sustainability2893001.04
Finance Research Letters262429.31
Climate Policy942162.30
Energy Policy762102.76
Ecological Economics461693.67
Energy Economics311655.32
European Financial Management415238.00
Table
Table 4. Top 10 authors with influence.
Table 4. Top 10 authors with influence.
AuthorTotal Number of ArticlesTotal ReferencesAverage Cited TimesTotal Number of First AuthorsNumber of Citations of the First Author
Derwall, J6258433172
Scholtens, B1621413.38546
Koedijk, K621335.500
Ter Horst, J31956500
Bauer, R518737.4374
Humphrey, JE717324.71463
Renneboog, L214773.52147
Kempf, A2126632126
Osthoff, P21266300
Guenster, N311739117
Table
Table 5. Summary of the four largest clusters, 2000–2015.
Table 5. Summary of the four largest clusters, 2000–2015.
Cluster IDSizeSilhouetteCluster Label (LLR)Representative Publication
#01620.839Responsible fundSievänen et al. (2013) [28]; Marti-Ballester (2015) [29]; Chegut et al. (2011) [30]; Marti-Ballester (2015) [31]; Rathner (2013) [32]
#11340.945Carbon financePurdon (2015) [33]; Li and Colombier (2011) [34]; Lewis (2010) [35]
#21170.971Contributor statesPickering et al. (2015) [36]; Pickering et al. (2015) [37]; Cui and Gui (2015) [38]
#3960.969Emission reductionsRindefjäll et al. (2011) [39]; Freeman and Zerriffi (2014) [40]
Table
Table 6. Top 13 references with strongest citation bursts between 2000 and 2015. (The red lines represent the strongest citation bursts of references in those years, while the blue lines represent that there were no strongest citation bursts).
Table 6. Top 13 references with strongest citation bursts between 2000 and 2015. (The red lines represent the strongest citation bursts of references in those years, while the blue lines represent that there were no strongest citation bursts).
Title of ReferenceStrengthBeginEnd2000–2015
Socially responsible investing in the United States (Schueth, 2003, DOI 10.1023/A:1022981828869)5.1820042010 Sustainability 14 09435 i001
The maturing of socially responsible investment: A review of the developing link with corporate social responsibility (Sparkes, 2004, DOI 10.1023/B:BUSI.0000033106.43260.99)5.9120052010 Sustainability 14 09435 i002
International evidence on ethical mutual fund performance and investment style (Bauer, 2005, DOI 10.1016/j.jbankfin.2004.06.035)5.4320062013 Sustainability 14 09435 i003
The eco-efficiency premium puzzle (Derwall, 2005, DOI 10.2469/faj.v61.n2.2716)3.2320072013 Sustainability 14 09435 i004
Ethical investment processes and outcomes (Michelson, 2004, DOI 10.1023/B:BUSI.0000033103.12560.be)3.4620082011 Sustainability 14 09435 i005
A comparison of socially responsible and conventional investors (McLachlan, 2004, DOI 10.1023/B:BUSI.0000033104.28219.92)3.0820082012 Sustainability 14 09435 i006
Beyond dichotomy: The curvilinear relationship between social responsibility and financial performance (Barnett, 2006, P1101, DOI 10.1002/smj.557)6.8920112015 Sustainability 14 09435 i007
The price of sin: The effects of social norms on markets (Hong, 2009, DOI 10.1016/j.jfineco.2008.09.001)3.7720112015 Sustainability 14 09435 i008
The stocks at stake: Return and risk in socially responsible investment (Galema, 2008, DOI 10.1016/j.jbankfin.2008.06.002)3.1920112015 Sustainability 14 09435 i009
Socially responsible investment fund performance: The impact of screening intensity (Lee, 2010, DOI 10.1111/j.1467-629X.2009.00336.x)4.9920122015 Sustainability 14 09435 i010
Socially responsible indexes (Statman, 2006, DOI 10.3905/jpm.2006.628411)3.2120122015 Sustainability 14 09435 i011
The effect of socially responsible investing on portfolio performance (Kempf, 2007, DOI 10.1111/j.1468-036X.2007.00402.x)2.99 2012 2015 Sustainability 14 09435 i012
A tale of values-driven and profit-seeking social investors (Derwall, 2011, DOI 10.1016/j.jbankfin.2011.01.009)3.1320132015 Sustainability 14 09435 i013
Socially responsible fixed-income funds (Derwall, 2009, DOI 10.1111/j.1468-5957.2008.02119.x)3.1320132015 Sustainability 14 09435 i014
Australian socially responsible funds: Performance, risk and screening intensity (Humphrey, 2011, DOI 10.1007/s10551-011-0836-7)3.1320132015 Sustainability 14 09435 i015
Table
Table 7. Summary of the 12 largest clusters between 2016 and 2021.
Table 7. Summary of the 12 largest clusters between 2016 and 2021.
Cluster IDSizeSilhouetteCluster Label (LLR)Representative Publication
#01870.834Responsible investmentD’Apice et al. (2021) [41]; Sciarelli et al. (2021) [42]; Pedersen et al. (2021) [43]; Brzeszczynski et al. (2021) [44]
#11030.933Green bondReboredo and Ugolini (2020) [45]; Tolliver et al. (2020) [46]; Liu et al. (2021) [47]; Leitao et al. (2021) [48]
#2840.934Low-carbon transitionMercure et al. (2019) [49]; Monasterolo and Raberto (2019) [50]; Mohsin et al. (2021) [51]; Chien et al. (2021) [52]
#3820.945Vulnerable countriesKlöck et al. (2018) [53]; Weiler et al. (2018) [54]; Doshi and Garschagen (2020) [55]; Betzold and Weiler (2017) [56]
#4810.978Low-carbon investmentNemet et al. (2017) [57]; Sudmant et al. (2017) [58]; Bernardo and D’Alessandro (2016) [59]
#5790.901Business modelMunoz-Torres et al. (2019) [60]
#6750.956Financial developmentShen et al. (2021) [61]; Sheraz et al. (2021) [62]; Zafar et al. (2021) [63]
#7720.969Supply chainAn et al. (2021) [64]; Shi et al. (2018) [65]; Cheng et al. (2018) [66]; Zou et al. (2020) [67]
#8680.901Conventional investment dilemmaSharma et al. (2021) [68]; Zhang et al. (2021) [69]; D’Orazio (2021) [70]
#9570.913Sustainable financingAri and Koc (2021) [71]; Mejia-Escobar et al. (2020) [72]; Setyowati (2020) [73]
#10570.936Environmental investmentTian et al. (2020) [74]; Chariri et al. (2019) [75]
#14480.939Green credit policyZhang et al. (2021) [76]; Zhang et al. (2021) [77]; Hu et al. (2021) [78], Zhang et al. (2021) [79]
Table
Table 8. Top 18 references with strongest citation bursts between 2016 and 2021. (The red lines represent the strongest citation bursts of references in those years, while the blue lines represent that there were no strongest citation bursts).
Table 8. Top 18 references with strongest citation bursts between 2016 and 2021. (The red lines represent the strongest citation bursts of references in those years, while the blue lines represent that there were no strongest citation bursts).
Title of ReferencesStrengthBeginEnd2016–2021
Is ethical money financially smart? Nonfinancial attributes and money flows of socially responsible investment funds (Renneboog, 2011, DOI 10.1016/j.jfi.2010.12.003)8.5920162019 Sustainability 14 09435 i016
A tale of values-driven and profit-seeking social investors (Derwall, 2011, DOI 10.1016/j.jbankfin.2011.01.009)7.6320162019 Sustainability 14 09435 i017
Trends in the literature on socially responsible investment: Looking for the keys under the lamppost (Capelle-Blancard, 2012, DOI 10.1111/j.1467-8608.2012.01658.x)5.1720162019 Sustainability 14 09435 i018
Measuring investors’ socially responsible preferences in mutual funds (Barreda-Tarrazona, 2011, DOI 10.1007/s10551-011-0868-z)3.8120162019 Sustainability 14 09435 i019
Financial performance of socially responsible investing (SRI): What have we learned? A meta-analysis (Revelli, 2015, DOI 10.1111/beer.12076)8.1920172019 Sustainability 14 09435 i020
Motives to engage in sustainable investment: A comparison between institutional and private investors (Jansson, 2011, DOI 10.1002/sd.512)4.6420172019 Sustainability 14 09435 i021
Tracking the implementation of green credit policy in China: Top-down perspective and bottom-up reform (Zhang, 2011, DOI 10.1016/j.jenvman.2010.12.019)4.2520172019 Sustainability 14 09435 i022
Australian socially responsible funds: Performance, risk and screening intensity (Humphrey, 2011, DOI 10.1007/s10551-011-0836-7)3.8620172019 Sustainability 14 09435 i023
Do socially (ir)responsible investments pay? New evidence from international ESG data (Auer, 2016, DOI 10.1016/j.qref.2015.07.002)3.3120182021 Sustainability 14 09435 i024
Attitudes towards socially and environmentally responsible investment (Borgers, 2014, DOI 10.1016/j.jbef.2014.01.005)2.6120182021 Sustainability 14 09435 i025
Socially responsible investing in the global market: The performance of us and European funds (Cortez, 2012, DOI 10.1002/ijfe.454)2.3220182021 Sustainability 14 09435 i026
Performance and performance persistence of socially responsible investment funds in Europe and North America (Lean, 2015, DOI 10.1016/j.najef.2015.09.011)3.6120192021 Sustainability 14 09435 i027
Socially responsible investing and stock performance: New empirical evidence for the US and European stock markets (Mollet, 2014, DOI 10.1016/j.rfe.2014.08.003)3.4620192021 Sustainability 14 09435 i028
Special Issue: Managing fragmentation and complexity in the emerging system of international climate finance (Pickering, 2017, DOI 10.1007/s10784-016-9349-2)2.6920192021 Sustainability 14 09435 i029
Acting on climate finance pledges: Inter-agency dynamics and relationships with aid in contributor states (Pickering, 2015, DOI 10.1016/j.worlddev.2014.10.033)2.4520192021 Sustainability 14 09435 i030
Corporate sustainability ratings: An investigation into how corporations use the Dow Jones Sustainability Index (Searcy, 2012, DOI 10.1016/j.jclepro.2012.05.022)2.3020192021 Sustainability 14 09435 i031
Does the stock market value the inclusion in a sustainability stock index? An event study analysis for German firms (Oberndorfer, 2013, DOI 10.1016/j.jeem.2013.04.005)2.3020192021 Sustainability 14 09435 i032
Red and blue investing: Values and finance (Hong, 2012, DOI 10.1016/j.jfineco.2011.01.006)2.2920192021 Sustainability 14 09435 i033
Table
Table 9. Some of the articles with the strongest transformative potential between 2016 and 2021. M is for ΔModularity, C-L is for ΔCluster Linkage, C-D is for ΔCentrality Divergence.
Table 9. Some of the articles with the strongest transformative potential between 2016 and 2021. M is for ΔModularity, C-L is for ΔCluster Linkage, C-D is for ΔCentrality Divergence.
YearMC-LC-DAuthorsMain Research Content
201798.7−2.510.04Escrig-Olmedo et al. (2017)This study developed a methodological approach based on the application of fuzzy multicriteria decision-making methods to integrate ESG investors’ preferences [82].
201796.746.360.09Dorfleitner and Nguyen (2017)This study explored how the best investment choice changes according to initial wealth and investors’ understanding of sustainable and responsible goals [83].
201795.22−2.160.04Bilbao-Terol et al. (2017)This study analyzed the impact of the social responsibility investment label on the market value of mutual funds [84].
201792.97−4.250.02Ried and Smeets (2017)This study explored why investors hold socially responsible mutual funds by linking administrative data to survey responses and behavior in incentivized experiments [85].
201992.72−2.90.08D’Orazio and Popoyan (2019)This study explored under which conditions macroprudential policy could tackle climate change and promote green lending, while also curbing sustainable financial risks [86].
202097.56−4.230.03Kölbel et al. (2020)This paper studied how sustainable investment contributed to social goals, and analyzed the literature on the impact of investors on the corporate environment and society [87].
202096.73−5.670.09Reboredo and Ugolini (2020)This paper studied price connectedness between the green bond and financial markets using a structural vector autoregressive (VAR) model [45].
202096.73−6.740.04Reboredo et al. (2020)This paper studied the dynamic correlation between green bonds and asset class prices on different time scales in both the EU and USA [88].
202197.974.520.15Yang et al. (2021)This study empirically tested the impact of green finance and financial technology on high-quality economic development [89].
202197.8916.690.31Muganyi et al. (2021)Based on the panel data of 290 cities in China, this paper comprehensively analyzed the impact of China’s green finance-related policies [90].
202197.7417.390.21Leitao et al. (2021)This study assessed the effects of energy commodities, conventional bonds, and green bonds on the European Union carbon market [48].
202197.73−2.780.1Lee et al. (2021)This study explored the causal relationships among oil prices, geopolitical risks, and the green bond index in the United States [91].
202197.73−4.560.03Fu and Ng (2021)The study revealed the potentials of scaling up the development of renewable energy by adequately managing and sharing key risks, and the green financial system can provide a lot of funds [92].
202197.47−0.940.02D’Orazio and Dirks (2021)This study empirically tested the effects of financial development, economic growth, and climate-related financial policies on carbon emissions for G20 countries [93].
202196.4616.970.10Liu et al. (2021)This study examined the dynamic dependence structure between green bonds and several global and sectoral clean energy markets [47].
202196.13−1.720.08Pham (2021)This study investigated the frequency connectedness and cross-quantile dependence between green bond and green equity markets [94].
202196.13−1.570.08Gao et al. (2021)This study explored the interaction between investor attention and green security markets [95].
202194.557.980.24Naeem et al. (2021)This study compared the efficiency of green and conventional bond markets pre- and during the COVID-19 pandemic [96].
202194.41−0.290.18Pham and Nguyen (2021)This study analyzed the tail-dependence between green bonds and other asset classes including conventional bonds, stock markets, and energy markets [97].
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Luo, W.; Tian, Z.; Zhong, S.; Lyu, Q.; Deng, M. Global Evolution of Research on Sustainable Finance from 2000 to 2021: A Bibliometric Analysis on WoS Database. Sustainability 2022, 14, 9435. https://doi.org/10.3390/su14159435

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Luo W, Tian Z, Zhong S, Lyu Q, Deng M. Global Evolution of Research on Sustainable Finance from 2000 to 2021: A Bibliometric Analysis on WoS Database. Sustainability. 2022; 14(15):9435. https://doi.org/10.3390/su14159435

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Luo, Wenbing, Ziyan Tian, Shihu Zhong, Qinke Lyu, and Mingjun Deng. 2022. "Global Evolution of Research on Sustainable Finance from 2000 to 2021: A Bibliometric Analysis on WoS Database" Sustainability 14, no. 15: 9435. https://doi.org/10.3390/su14159435

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